The Forgotten
by ALaFemmeFatale
Summary: Tony Stark/Pepper Potts. "The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time." Friedrich Nietzsche
1. Chapter 1

The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time

"The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time." Friedrich Nietzsche

Title: The Forgotten

Rating: PG-13 for now, may increase with future chapters

Pairing: Tony Stark/Pepper Potts, TS/PP

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to characters... or anything, really.

Set in the movieverse, after the first movie. This is unbetaed, so bear with me, I haven't written in a long time.

--

Chapter 1: Breathless

Pepper Potts was not breathing.

Not because she didn't want to. Not because she was incapable of it. She was not breathing because she know that if she took that desperately-needed gasp of air, it would be her last. And Pepper Potts was not ready to take her last breath.

She should have anticipated the danger. She should have known this was a possibility. Foresight was one of the many responsibilities in Mr. Stark's employ, and her planning skills were legendary. It hadn't always been that way, but what Pepper lacked in natural ability, she more than made up for in sheer determination. She had spent years cultivating that particular attribute, to plan for everything that her employer was too careless and too reckless and too wrapped up in his own ingenuity to see coming, and here she was, a failure at something she thought she had gotten so good at –

Slow footsteps descending the staircase interrupted her reverie.

"Peeeeeeeh-pperrrrrr."

She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself not to hear the voice as it echoed through Mr. Stark's basement. This could not be happening. This was not happening. Any minute Iron Man would come crashing in and save her, and she would berate him for taking so long, and he would just laugh, maybe suggestively comment that she wouldn't want a minute man anyway –

"Come out, come out, wherever you are."

A tear slid down her cheek, and her chest burned for another breath. Just one little breath. Give up, give in. That was all it would take.

Laughter rang out as the footsteps paused at the bottom of the staircase. "Alright, let's play it your way. Keep hiding."

Pepper swallowed the lump in her throat. Keep hiding. She could do that. And he could take whatever he needed from Mr. Stark's workshop, and then he would go. She just had to keep still, keep waiting, keep holding her breath. Tony Stark made far more difficult demands every day. And he was coming, and he would fix this, and until then she would keep hiding.

"I love playing games."

Pepper's eyes snapped back open. He wasn't going to just grab and go. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as the footsteps began again, each one louder and closer than the last. She remained frozen, crouched tightly inside the cabinet with the door ajar. She didn't dare close it now.

"But you know what I love even more than playing?"

The footsteps passed the cabinet, then stopped. The seconds stretched on inexorably in the silence. Pepper strained to hear anything over her own heartbeat ringing in her ears. She tried to peer through the crack in the door, but she could almost make out the familiar form –

The sliver of light on Pepper's face widened as the cabinet door swung open.

"Winning."

Pepper Potts took her long-awaited breath, and screamed.


	2. Chapter 2

"The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time

"The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time." Friedrich Nietzsche

Title: The Forgotten

Rating: R

Pairing: Tony Stark/Pepper Potts, TS/PP

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to characters... or anything, really.

Set in the movieverse, after the first movie. Includes a little reference to the book based on the movie. This is unbetaed, so bear with me, I haven't written in a long time.

--

Chapter 2: Sympathy

Four Weeks Earlier

Pepper Potts could be very sympathetic.

She did not often let that aspect of her personality come to light. Years of experience in the professional world had taught her that a soft heart warranted disdain. Efficiency was the greatest good, the only good, and Pepper was nothing if not good. So she pursed her lips, checked her sentimentality at the door, and she thrived.

Still, for all her posturing, Pepper still had a soft heart. She had fortified the walls around it, but she couldn't harden it altogether. Not even against the Mr. Stark's evening guests.

Balancing the dry cleaning in one hand and her blackberry in the other, she rapped lightly on the door, careful not to let the wire hangers slip through her fingers. "Come in," a voice replied coyly, girlishly, hopefully. Pepper paused, blinked. She knew that voice.

That had been her voice.

Memories that were never too far from her mind surged forward, unbidden. There was a time in Pepper Pott's life when she had not been so polished, or so proper, or so disciplined. There was even a time (far off as it felt) when her name had not been Pepper. She had modeled for a few years after college, and she had lived the lifestyle that went with it: late nights, rich men, and endless flutes of champagne. But despite the ever-present opportunity, she had never been what anyone would call easy – she had been too busy enjoying herself to leave with the smiling men that brought her those sweet chilled drinks. It had taken a smirk and a martini, extra dry with three olives, to lure her away from the celebration of Stark Industries' new CEO.

At the time, she had not known that the smirk belonged to Tony Stark. She had not known his social security number, his budding penchant for scotch, or the story of his parents' death. All she had known was what she saw, and she saw deep brown eyes and dark brown hair and a smirk that did not quite come naturally yet. To someone who watched closely enough, it looked like a meticulously studied, carefully assumed pose.

All night, they had watched each other from a distance. As she danced and flirted and sipped champagne, she was always aware of his presence. She could feel his eyes on her, and they sent delicious tingling sensations through her that all the sweet, bubbly drinks in the world could not match.

When he finally approached her, the festivities were drawing to a close.

"What do you drink?"

"Surprise me." So he'd ordered two martinis, extra dry, with three olives each.

"Martini. Interesting. Most men give me champagne or a cocktail. Something sweet."

"I'm not most men." He smiled conspiratorially and leaned in, as if to tell her a secret. His lips hovered by her ear, his warm breath tickling her cheek and smelling faintly of scotch. "I'm sweet enough already."

For the first time in her life, Virginia Potts went home with a man that she had only just met. And it had been phenomonal. He had looked at her like he couldn't take in enough of her creamy skin, like he wanted to devour her. Those deep dark eyes, slightly glazed from intoxication, scorched a path from her hairline, curving with leisurely desperation down the side of her neck, along her collarbone, through the valley of her breasts until it met the midnight blue folds of her dress. His hands, with a very slight tremble, retraced the trail his eyes had blazed, and his lips had followed suit as he gently, reverently slid the strap off her shoulder. His mouth lingered in the crook of her neck and applied suction lightly in just... THAT... spot... that made her knees go weak, while his arms wrapped around her and his fingers slowly, aching slowly, eased the zipper down until it rested just above the base of her spine. As he divested her of her dress, he took a step back to let the gauzy material hit the floor, and to take her in with those intense eyes. His face lit up as he had just unwrapped the only present he had ever wanted and it was better than he could have imagined.

She had been wildly uninhibited, and he had been intensely passionate, and what they had lacked in experience they more than made up for with enthusi-

"Hello?" The girlish voice, less confident this time, pulled Pepper back into the present as sharply as it had pushed her into the past.

"Tony? Are you still out there?"

Pepper cleared her throat, preparing to give the speech with which she was so intimately familiar. Shifting the freshly pressed clothing over her shoulder, she slipped her blackberry into the pocket of her blazer and rested her fingers lightly on the doorknob.

"Mr. Stark is unavailable at the moment. May I come in?"

In a voice so practiced that it felt prerecorded, she explained to the bewildered young woman that her attire was clean and a car was at her disposal. She hung the dress on the bathroom door and left the room to let the young woman change, glad to be rid of the weight. Nothing made her feel dirtier than those crisp, clean clothes.

As she waited for Mr. Stark's guest to emerge, she allowed herself a moment, just a moment, to remember how the next morning had played out for her. As far as she could tell, there had not been a routine in place at the time – she had woken up, alone and hung over, to a knock on the door. Assuming it was Tony, she had run a hand through her light blonde locks, hoped it would appear messy-sexy, and replied coyly, girlishly, hopefully, "Come in."

It had not been Tony. It had been the maid, an older matronly woman who explained in broken English that she had found the dress on the living room floor that morning, and she had not realized it was a dress, and she had put it in the laundry, and she was very sorry but...

She held up the misshapen, shrunken garment, and Virginia had wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or both. She shifted awkwardly under the bed covers.

"Where is Tony?"

"Business trip. Return tomorrow."

"Did he leave a message, or a note... did he say anything?"

The woman shook her head no, although Pepper could not be completely sure if she meant no, he hadn't, or no, she didn't understand the question. No, not Pepper. Virginia. Virginia could not be completely sure. Because Virginia might occasionally find herself in this situation, but prim, straight-laced, uptight Pepper would never allow it.

Unable to wear the ruined dress, Virginia had grabbed the least expensive-looking clothes she could find from Tony's closet – a pair of MIT sweatpants and a black wifebeater – called a cab, and left as quickly as she could. Virginia had not been as thorough or detail-oriented as Pepper would someday be. Before working for Mr. Stark, she had sometimes wondered if she had checked the nightstand or the pillow for a note. Sometimes she imagined that she had, sometimes that she had not.

When she finally met Mr. Stark three years later as an entry-level accountant for Stark Industries, she realized it was irrelevant. The Tony she had shared that night with had been Tony Stark. The Tony Stark. Man about town, playboy extraordinaire, self-proclaimed whore of Babylon. And to add insult to injury, he didn't remember her.

There had been one brief moment when she thought he might. When she burst into his office with the flawed projection report, he had skimmed over her high cheekbones and full lips, looked into her eyes, and for just a moment she thought there might be a flash of recognition.

But he had simply looked at her the same way he looked at every other beautiful woman that crossed his path. To be fair, she had changed since; she was no long wild and carefree, and she had let the pixie blonde haircut of her modeling days grow out into longer ginger red tresses. He hired her as his executive assistant, which purged the last of her doubts; he would never, ever do that if he remembered. As the last few years had taught her, if there was one thing Tony liked less than the morning after, it was a second run-in.

Pepper looked as the bedroom door swung open and the young woman peeked out, unsure of where to go. Pepper gestured for her to follow and walked a few paces ahead as she escorted the young woman to the waiting town car. After opening the front door, she turned to usher her out when she noticed her downcast face. Pepper paused; she wanted to express some kind of solidarity, a mutual understanding, a shared experience. She reached out as if to touch the young woman's shoulder, but quickly withdrew it.

"Have a pleasant afternoon." And she shut the door behind her.

Pepper Potts could be very sympathetic. But she did not have to show it.


End file.
